Can't agree there. Although there are very few NEW posts, there's a rich vein of literary and movie criticism for us to tap into, and most of it is serious and mature, unlike most of the internet, which tends, by turns, to be either trivial or pompous. I really deplore the fact that many of our best contributors (present readers excepted) decided to plough a lone furrow with personal blogs, or to join in the international crapfest that is twitter.

I was incredibly sceptical about book bloggers when the phenomenon started. I believed that by reviewing for free, they would naively end up becoming a wing of the publishing publicity arm. Actually loads of them have become exactly that, which is fine by me as someone struggling to get their books to readers. Uncritical reviews are just the ticket.

But I have to say I'm impressed by the Palimpsest alumni's output. It has a lot of integrity and I think JS's Asylum in particular has demonstrated how powerful book bloggers can be when supporting new writers that the press often come to late. Yes, it's a shame that they don't necessarily post here any more but I can understand why they concentrate on less collegiate channels. It's a LOT of work reviewing books and you need to build an audience to make that effective. Bulletin boards, sadly, as we know, aren't very good at building audience.